By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
Gail Essig's heart sank when she saw pictures of the tsunami devastation visited upon Lhokesmauwe, Indonesia.
Thirty years ago, as a 10-year-old girl, she called the village at the northern tip of the island of Sumatra home. Straight east of Sumatra is Borneo, site of the first "Survivor" reality series.
Dec. 26 those isolated coastal towns were near the epicenter of the powerful Indian Ocean earthquake that unleashed tidal waves through a 10-nation arc of destruction that reached all the way to Africa.
Walls of water washed bodies ashore on tropical beaches where Essig, who attended 11 schools by seventh grade, as a fifth grader remembers an idyllic time.
Where she played with monkeys, fed an orphaned bear from a baby bottle and went barefoot every day is now part of the largest relief effort the world has ever seen.
Essig said she was at her mother's for Christmas when reports of the tidal waves began airing.
She retrieved photo albums and remembered happier times in Indonesia.
Her father worked for Bechtel Corp., which builds all over the world, although it was also involved in constructing the Donald C. Cook and Palisades nuclear power plants in this area.
Her dad was involved in building a liquefied natural gas plant. Natural gas was its biggest resource.
Bechtel built 10-feet fences to keep out sacred water buffalo, which they otherwise had to work around.
As a fifth grader, with an older brother in high school who went to boarding school in Singapore and an older sister in eighth grade, Essig treasured living "footsteps" from the ocean. She attended school six days a week, including a half day on Saturday.
With no vehicle, stores, television or telephones, there wasn't much else to do. Her dad would bring home a big, yellow dump truck if they wanted to go for a Sunday drive.
Her family moved to Indonesia for about a year from Richland, Wash., in the Pacific Northwest. She also lived in Connecticut growing up, though her parents were originally from the Benton Harbor area.
Essig remembers barbers cutting hair in beachside tiki huts every few weeks in the open hair, sweeping clippings off into the sand.
Lacking stores, grocery shopping meant having provisions shipped back from Singapore.
Or, they might navigate the local "market" - fresh produce spread on the ground on banana leaves for bartering beneath a canopy of palm trees.
As a girl, her blonde hair was almost white in a land where "they had never seen fair-skinned people before. I was even more an anomaly with my blonde hair. Their custom was to pinch people they liked. It was a little bit overwhelming" being such an item of curiosity."
Her father went from Indonesia to Taipei, Cairo and Port Gibson, Miss.
She graduated high school from Lake Michigan Catholic and worked at Whirlpool for 10 years before deciding to become a teacher.
She's in her sixth year with Dowagiac Union Schools.
Her son, Adam, who turned 7 Feb. 3, took money he received for Christmas from his uncle and donated it to the Red Cross.